Computer hard freezing a lot

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DemonClaw

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Feb 23, 2015
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Hello, first post so hope this is at the right place.

I put together a new computer 1 month ago (or maybe 2) and so far it's been causing me nothing but problems, it's hard freezing a lot by complete random whether it's watching youtube, movie, playing a game or just having music on, I am pretty sure it's down to being the motherboard or the RAM, by hard freezing i mean it can only be turned off by holding power button and what shows heat on the motherboard goes 00.


So everything is new except the GPU and hard drives

CPU spec:

case: Fractal r5 + corsair 140 mm silent fan (since forgot it only came with 1 fan on front)
motherboard: MSI Z97 Gaming 5
CPU: Intel Core i5 4690k 3,50 ghz (not done any overclocking) with CoolerMaster Hyper 412S cpu fan
RAM: Crucial BallisticX sport 2x 8 gb 1600 mhz
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2 GB
Power Supply: Corsair RM 650
4x hard drives and 1 SSD, now the SSD is new (Samsung 850 PRO 256 gb) I had a 60 gb ssd but it completely died out of nowhere (unless it's related to this, then worried for new ssd)

Cable management is pretty okay but except for psu to gpu power cord, nothing is blocking front fan from cpu fan



I've moved the hard drive cage down and removed that was below to improve airflow

Heat is usually ~40-50°c while under load, it's at 30-32°c now(cpu) with chrome open (though side panel is off since ready to switch if freezes and try the other ram)

I've ran the microsoft memory diagnostic while asleep and it found no problems. I am when writing this removed 1 memory stick and so far ran fine (otherwise probably never finished compared to how often it's frozen today). Mainly think it's RAM because of bluescreen but find it weird that it happened just moving the slots.

BIOS is fully up to date, should be all the newest drivers installed from motherboard and gpu.

Please help me, this is driving me insane. Unless this works now with ram out even though tried it before)

Let me know if got any questions if you are unsure with something I haven't explained well enough.
 
So I loaded up HW monitor pro (had it recording for 35 mins on idle and was gonna check over that later), restarted hw monitor, turned on Prime95 to try the 'blend' (tests some of everything, lots of RAM tested ) testing ran for about 10 seconds and blue screen, the same as before.

On Mon 27.4.2015 22:38:06 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\042715-6942-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x72A40)
Bugcheck code: 0x124 (0x0, 0xFFFFFA8007281028, 0xBA000000, 0x58000402)
Error: WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This bug check indicates that a fatal hardware error has occurred. This bug check uses the error data that is provided by the Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA).
This is likely to be caused by a hardware problem problem. This problem might be caused by a thermal issue.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.


edit: I tried also the other 2 stress tests in Prime 95
In-place large FFTs (maximum power consumption, some RAM tested and exact same blue screen came up.
Small FFTs (maximum heat, FPU stress, data fits in L2 cache, RAM not tested much) - computer freezes, no blue screen
 
For HWMonitor Pro enable the CSV reports, those are only hard data no charts so way lighter to upload them.

Hmm the Prime95 results could be the key data here, I wonder how your CPU was tested before by... was it a friend or a technical support store? anyways, if they didn't test it properly then this may be the issue, as I mentioned before if you look up for 0x124 results most of the people had the same symptoms and the problem was a faulty CPU.
 
Yeah I was curious as well with how they tried it, they said they'd stress tested it, I see 3dmark was installed on the computer (i just showed up, didnt let them now that i was gonna pick it up today, probably why it was still on there) but yeah it was technical support store. (Bought the motherboard and cpu there and asked before if they could check the motherboard since i had tried switching everything else)
 
Where would you recommend putting the .csv files / upload to ?
Got about 4 hours of semi-idle (mainly while watching shows and some browsing and youtube, will put up later from when playing a game (if it helps any with volts/watt or should i maybe not even bother and just go and ask for a replacement cpu (maybe bring print out the blue screen or how it can be brought up via stress test)
 
So not sure how to feel about this, went and turned on cs:go to have some more logs to upload and well it's pretty much always frozen within 15-20 min, this time I played 53 mins and no freezing.. (just stopped so i could go eat) I ... I'm not sure how to feel about that, I'll try another game also and upload that also

oh and forgot Radikal_, the BSOD in Prime95 were on I think all but 1 (small fft but it froze at that)
 
Here are the logs while playing CS: GO (which should be stable, played 53 mins with no problems https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Lcn_KPjc-6cE0xMjF0U3NVbWc/view?usp=sharing


I tried playing Cities: Skylines and froze after 45 mins (usually in most games froze after 15-20 mins)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Lcn_KPjc-6YU8tT0tCR3lRa2c/view?usp=sharing

both are running off SSD, i'll try Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor since these 2 aren't as heavy on computer i'm guessing (since source is old engine and think skylines isn't that heavy, could be wrong, was at 60 fps i think, though forgot to check more often)
 
Probably very similair to cities skyline one, or this lasted as long

Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor - This ran on a different drive (hard drive i have just for games) it froze aswell after about 48 mins.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Lcn_KPjc-6RC1GSnRmTk9ueHc/view?usp=sharing

I've included screenshot of the settings - doubt it helps if it's more likely motherboard or cpu, in all cases from start the game runs great always, never stutters or any problems it just suddenly freezes
 
So this is what I've seen from those csv logs:

- During idle your GPU core runs at 450Mhz, at load (regardless the game) goes up to 540mhz, now correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't it be running at like at least 1152mhz? verify this value with GPU-Z while running a game or a stress test like furmark.

- Only on Shadow of Mordor and at idle you had enabled to log the +12V value, with Shadow of Mordor it seems to drop down to 11.2V, could be a misreading (seen this before with HWMonitor on its older versions), verify this with AIDA64 or with latest version of HWMonitor Pro.

- Your CPU VCore also drops below 0.7 with Shadow of Mordor, CS:GO didn't affect it at all, Skyline got it down to 0.9 I think which is still acceptable.


From all of this it seems like a PSU issue, if I remember correctly you swapped the PSU before, but perhaps the other unit used wasn't powerful enough thus still causing the problem.
 
- During idle your GPU core runs at 450Mhz, at load (regardless the game) goes up to 540mhz, now correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't it be running at like at least 1152mhz? verify this value with GPU-Z while running a game or a stress test like furmark.
I turned on shadows on mordor and checked cpu-z and got this core is clocked at 450 mhz(goes to 540 mhz)
while memory goes from 324 mhz to 3505 mhz (picture of screenshot below

http://i.imgur.com/5usmac7.png

The PSU I swapped is 700W - Tagan BZ700 (current is Corsair RM650

This is report from AIDA64 https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_Lcn_KPjc-6WW95MEpEcWJwMVU&authuser=0

Report from cpu-z https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Lcn_KPjc-6MjJJS21wMldSeUU/view?usp=sharing
[both reports from idle]
With the logging of Hardware Monitor Pro, it looks like i have the newest version but strange I didn't change anything what it should log, was thinking if it is because I don't have registered/bought version, just that downloaded from site, though doesn't make sense that it works on one but not another.


I'm watching cpu in cpu-z not sure if this is normal but I see core voltage going up and down to 0.72v and up to 0.240v so core#0 multiplayer goes up and down between x37 and x39
 
Gonna check later those logs, your CPU multiplier is going to vary due to the turbo boost function, it will go as far as it can go depending on the temps and voltage.

- up to 0.240v or 1.240v?

I really think your GPU is not working properly, 540mhz is not its default core clock while in usage:

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-980/specifications

Since the +12V is not at the desired level it will cause throttle down primarily on the GPU, better to see directly logs from AIDA64 on load to confirm those low 12V values we say earlier on Shadow of Mordor.

Bear in mind the 12V also gives power to the CPU, so that may be the reason Prime95 hangs.

Can't get out of my mind a possible electrical issue in your house instead of the PSU...........
 
Damn it, I got bored and started watching a show (was gonna read a book) while stress test was going, it had gone for 1 hour and what 20-30 mins circa on AIDA64 extreme, luckily I had HWmonitor pro logging just in case and saw that finishing a log when it froze
Found here
so hopefully it will help, this had cpu at 100% the whole time but wasn't stress testing hard drives or GPU (just left settings at default), 2 screenshots are included from early on.

Tried playing shadow of mordor again before that, which ran pretty similar (1 hour and ~40 min) and logs for that from HW monitor are -here-


EditOh never mind turned on the game again since it's been lasting longer and longer but then froze in 2-3 minutes

Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
Date: 30.4.2015 01:44:20
Event ID: 41
Task Category: (63)
Level: Critical
Keywords: (2)
User: SYSTEM
Computer: Demonclaw-PC
Description:
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power" Guid="{331C3B3A-2005-44C2-AC5E-77220C37D6B4}" />
<EventID>41</EventID>
<Version>2</Version>
<Level>1</Level>
<Task>63</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8000000000000002</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2015-04-30T01:44:20.294003100Z" />
<EventRecordID>43523</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="8" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>Demonclaw-PC</Computer>
<Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="BugcheckCode">0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter1">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter2">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter3">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter4">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="SleepInProgress">false</Data>
<Data Name="PowerButtonTimestamp">0</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>
 
So computer still froze at the LAN (once maybe twice the first day and then was more and more each day but felt less then at home) and dad tested electricity outlet in the room and few places in the house and read as normal.

not sure if related, on the LAN when my computer froze like in Payday 2 all except the host dropped and in Insurgency was connection problem for others for about 3 seconds.
 
hey i haven't read all the crash dumpbs and all comments because just checked this thread, so i excuse for that. just wanna give some ideas, in case you haven't already tried.

- did you monitor voltage regulation? ( or measure with device? )
- did you already check gpu power load under full usage?

I've seen your gpu downclocks itself radically, if the power load turns out to be low on the gpu its probably a psu/psu cable issue.
The other thing i can think of could be failed capacitors on the gpu. i'm not 100% sure about this , but there is a possibilty the capacitors died and this is causing the power load issues which could result in the downclocking and could be the source of the issue.
 
So I've tried installing MSI Afterburning and had that logging while i played Wolfenstein.(not lot of action going on)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_Lcn_KPjc-6a0E2SjBicllEcnc&authuser=0

Now I tried (for the first time) to monitor the voltage but i noticed it doesn't seem crazy precise the one my dad owns by that i mean it does show like 5.2V, just 5 which might make it hard since isn't it supposed to be around ~5% give or take from the volt it's supposed to be at? but seemed fine on old PSU (tested on that first, since well testing for first time anything like this) will edit in few minutes hopefully with current PSU (not sure if coincidence but it froze when turned off the old psu)

I tried on new PSu and everything seemed fine according to this (and good thing that had old psu because all the cables are black on the corsair rm650, good thing i read on the box before that the fan doesn't turn on unless what 40% load (power) or I think heat) because fan didn't spin at all. (http://www.corsair.com/en/~/media/E9CB1013DD3A45138ABA9F7BD57B4E97.ashx?w=625) and tried getting corsair link and that doesnt seem to show anything with that.
 
Just to completely eliminated the SSD (even though got a new one since put this system together) i college borrowed me an hdd to test this out (have windows on that) and I only had that plugged if it was something related to other drives) and froze after ~70 minutes playing CS: GO, don't know if i'll have to go the 3rd time to the computer store i bought the motherboard and cpu cause to me it feels clearly from everything i've tested that it's that, pretty frustrating since it's an ~50 minute drive so gas cost and well they didn't charge me anything last time since it didn't freeze for them but I don't know, feel like im out of options otherwise
 
Just tried to download the logging you made while playing Wolfenstein, its denying me access to it.

Anyways, since values seem ok overall (the 12V+ still pending since HW might be giving false data) and if I remember correctly you already swapped video card and PSU, then yes...... CPU/mobo, one of them is the issue, see if you can get tested your CPU again and make sure they're testing it with Prime 95 small FFT test before spending in new parts.
 
Hey, so on Wednesday I went again to the store i bought the cpu and motherboard and said that I still had the problem as before and I had literally swapped everything but cpu and motherboard, left it there for the day but picked it up and they said they had tried switching most things themselves (had experience saying that someone said that switched x part and then they tried that and switching part x fixed it), anyway they had switched ram, cpu and everything but the power supply and motherboard but they didn't have that motherboard or anything related (intel 1150) in stock, so i had to come back on friday (most stores where closed on thursday 14th of may. (By the way I mentioned the blue screen in Prime 95 and they said when they stress tested it now, it froze right away, hadn't happened for them before, which was why i hadn't gotten replaced since they wheren't seeing/getting the problem for them)

Yesterday (friday) I went again since the motherboard had arrived, now they mentioned on Wednesday that I'd get another kind of motherboard, cost a little more but I wouldn't have to pay anything extra for it and it's worked great so far and not had any freezes (played GTA 5 for 2 hours+) and little yesterday browsing online (hadn't had much time since had to work the night) - new motherboard was Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H-CF, so first time i buy something else then gigabyte and trying msi motherboard myself for the first time, that ends up failing and get a Gigabyte again 😛


In summon the motherboard was the culprit.